12 Days
by winkingannie
Summary: A belated Christmas offering. RiverJayne.


A/N: Very late Christmas one-shot, some pre-Rayne. Fluff for everyone who said Bitter/Thankful were too sad. Please review!

At first, Jayne thought somebody was just being careless with their drawings of birds. The first picture, of a bird and some trees, Jayne found on his weight bench. A day later, pasted to the front of Jayne's food locker was the second picture captured two birds, mates, and was. The third picture wasn't of birds in the strictest sense. Someone had sketched three, well in all honesty, they were three bits of trim, whores. It was at this point that Jayne started to think that the pictures were meant for him. Nobody else on board ever mentioned losing drawings, or even having seen them.

With the fourth picture, they were back to birds; what type of birds they were, Jayne had no idea. In truth, Jayne was a little disappointed in the fourth picture, which he found rapped around the first rung of the ladder to his bunk.

By day five, an inkling started in Jayne's brain about who the mystery drawer was; only person he knew on board who could draw was Crazy. But Jayne searched all day and couldn't find a picture anywhere. As he crawled into bed that night, Jayne grumbled to himself, "Guess the girl got bored with her little game." Of course, that was just the moment he noticed the sheet over his weapons had some new decorations. Five intricately woven pieces of string in little circles graced the covering. Now Jayne was not the quickest of men, but snippets of an old, old song that his Ma used to sing started running through his mind. "Huh."

A little after dawn on day six, Jayne bounced (though he would deny to his grave ever having bounced anywhere in his whole gorramn life) into the kitchen. The mercenary was a little bit ashamed at how much he was looking forward to his daily present from the crazy girl. That thought quickly rushed away when he saw the splendor that awaited him. A half dozen, perfectly shaped, completely uncracked eggs lay in a basket on the table. Jayne had no idea where, how or when the girl managed to get her hands on six eggs, but he couldn't be bothered with details at a time like this. After feasting on a mass of scrambled eggs, Jayne decided he needed to thank Crazy, but he would wait until this whole thing was over (he didn't want to spoil the surprise).

Day seven found another drawing, this one of seven graceful swans skimming the surface of a lake, taped to the underside of Jayne's chair in the mess. If any of the others had ventured into Jayne's bunk, they would have been astonished to see its burgeoning resemblance to a gallery (well, those who had ever gone inside an art gallery would have thought so, the others would have been like, "Whoa, lots of pictures.").

Jayne's picture on day eight was slightly different from his previous gifts. There were no birds and the scene was less stately and more, well, amusing. A single cow stood at the forefront, with an obviously put-upon look on his face, while eight little girls dragging buckets bigger than them marched toward said cow. The smile that stayed on Jayne's face all day had several of the crew talking and a mite worried.

Day nine happened to be Jayne's laundry day. The site that greeted him upon entering the laundry room enticed a genuine guffaw from the man. Nine dresses, including Kaylee's fancy pink get-up and several of Inara's silk gowns, hung from the lines criss-crossing the room. Jayne wondered how his girl had managed to sneak such prized possessions from their owners before deciding she'd used the same skills when sneaking into his room. The dresses moved as Jayne carefully walked in between them, each one slightly swaying. Jayne carefully looked into the hall to make sure no one was around before he completed a quick spin in the middle of the room, then took a deep bow, like the ones he'd seen in the vids do.

The tenth day into Jayne's merry gift recieving, the drawing made him catch his breath. He discovered it simply lying on his pillow. For the first time, Jayne was in the picture. The hunting scene showed Jayne grasping Vera with nine other creatures nearby; several big cats showed claws and fangs, a huge ape pounded its chest, two dinosaurs were locked in battle, a lone wolf raised its head, a big snake slithered across the bottom of the page, and a small girl held a wicked looking dagger in the left top corner. The same girl had managed to capture a ferocity in each creature while retaining the elegant lines of her previous drawings. After he'd spent an hour staring at the picture, Jayne carefully placed it a box under his bed, along with over ten years worth of letters from home.

Jayne discovered a much less intense gift on day eleven. A music recording was tied to one of his pull up handles. The music was quick and lively and Jayne liked it.

On day twelve, Jayne heard thumping everywhere he went. In the shower, it sounded as though something was wrong with the pipes. In the mess, Jayne swore he heard somebody beating two pans together. And that's when he realized he was being treated to the sounds of twelve drummers drumming. 'Cute,' he thought, before immediately squashing the idea.

The next day, Serenity was finally planetside once more. As the others rushed off, Mal ordered Jayne to watch over River, as Kaylee and Simon were needed in town. After a half-hearted protest, Jayne agreed. Mal immediately suspected something; Jayne rarely did things he didn't want to. Though he would happily and eagerly go to the grave before admitting it, Mal knew first hand that Jayne did better puppy-dog eyes than Kaylee, and he hadn't even tried to get out of River-watch. If Mal hadn't been hurrying off to dinner with Inara, he might have cared. As it was, Jayne was left to watch River.

He slowly ambled over to where she was sitting next to Serenity. "Um, thanks for my twelve days." Holding out his hand, he asked, "Wanna go for a walk?" River smiled and took his hand as she gracefully rose to her feet, delighted her plan of kindness had gone so well.


End file.
